You can hike, as my friend Scott Hubbard and I did last summer, from inn to inn, using a rail assist whenever weather or fatigue dictate.

Or you can base yourself in a cozy hotel, as we also did, and undertake a series of breathtakingly scenic day hikes, commuting home at the end of each day.

You can do this pretty much anywhere in the Swiss Alps, but we mostly stuck to the Jungfrau region of the Bernese Oberland. It’s the most classic, iconic corner of the Alps, the place you think about when you think about Switzerland.

Meiringen, where we began, is a handsome village on the upper reaches of the River Aare. It’s famous for two things: It’s where meringue — as in lemon meringue pie — was born, and where Sherlock Holmes died. Well, sort of.

Twenty minutes’ walk from town, we rode a wooden funicular, dating back to the turn of the last century, 800 vertical feet to the top of Reichenbach Falls, one of the highest in Europe.

On the far side of the cataract, reachable by a trail that looked a bit sketchy for my taste, a plaque and a big “X” marked the ledge where the deerstalker-capped fictional detective fought to the death with his archenemy, Professor Moriarty.

Thousands of Holmes aficionados make a pilgrimage here every year, many dressed in costume.

(Spoiler alert: After the outcry from fans, author Arthur Conan Doyle later wrote that Holmes didn’t really fall to his death that day; he just went into hiding.)

The trail rose steeply into the mountains, and we immediately began to regret all the impedimenta we’d brought along. Our packs were far too heavy.

My advice to those who follow in our footsteps: For inn-to-inn hiking in the Alps, carry the absolute bare minimum. Or take advantage of the nifty service I’ll discuss later.

Further up the trail we came to the Rosenlaui Glacier Gorge, a narrow chasm carved through the limestone and bursting with waterfalls, potholes and all manner of water-sculpted art. The walkway itself is an impressive example of Swiss engineering, and well worth the short detour.

Postcard Alps

The next couple of days were filled with timeless alpine vignettes that would be instantly familiar to Heidi and her many fans.

A bearded old man, straight out of central casting, sat by the trail in checked shirt and wool knickers, whittling new shingles for his tiny mountain cabin. On a table were wheels of cheese he’d made himself.

In pastures and on hillsides in a shade of saturated green that hardly seemed real, hundreds and hundreds of cowbells clanked like alpine wind chimes. It was a sound that would follow us throughout the trip.

“One thing no one ever says around here is, ‘I gotta have more cowbell!,’” said Scott.

At an immaculate little farm near the Grosse Scheidegg pass, we stopped to fill our water bottles, and the farmer offered us hunks of freshly made goat cheese.

Gradually the three signature peaks of the Bernese Oberland came into view: the Eiger (ogre), the Mönch (monk) and the Jungfrau (virgin). The monk stands in the middle, protecting the young maiden from the monster.

Weather detour

One morning brought home the value of the rail passes we were carrying. Our planned hiking route for the day was a Swiss classic: from the mountaintop ski resort called First, where we’d spent the night, to the alpine hotel at Schynige Platte. It’s a long, demanding walk with some of the grandest vistas in the Alps.

But we woke to drizzle, low gray clouds and a forecast of worse to come. And, with our burdensome packs, we could have used an easy day.

On an inn-to-inn walk you’re often committed to pressing ahead no matter the weather. But not in Switzerland.

Flashing our rail passes, we rode a series of gondolas down to Grindelwald, caught the train to Wilderswil and then the cog railway back up to Schynige Platte.

We were welcomed by a pair of costumed gentlemen playing enormously long alpine horns — a Ricola ad brought life. (Alpine herbs for the cough drops are grown in the region.)

By late afternoon the weather had lifted, and we were able to hike part of our intended route in reverse before looping back to the hotel.

The Hotel Schynige Platte is a beauty. The current incarnation, reachable only by foot or the cog railway, dates to 1899 and commands views of the Jungfrau group, the valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen and the enormous lake known as the Thunersee.

A cooperative of local farmers owns the land and each year transforms 200 tons of milk into alpine cheese, which is aged in mountainside huts and sold at the hotel, along with locally produced butter, jam, herbs and honey.

The Ogre’s face

We discovered a brilliant way to lighten the burdens on our backs: For a fee, you can drop your luggage off at pretty much any train station in Switzerland and pick it up at any other.

It costs about $12 per piece, and there are rules that make it impractical for daily use, but for an occasional pare-down-your-heavy-load opportunity it can’t be beat.

Our next two days were dominated by the North Face of the Eiger, one of the most notorious mountain walls on the planet.

Six thousand vertical feet of loose, crumbling limestone held in place by ice, it is often enshrouded in dark roiling clouds when the rest of the Alps bask in sunshine — “like those dark clouds that hover eternally above Transylvania castles in vampire movies,” as Jon Krakauer once put it.

And so it was on the day we set off on the Eiger Trail, which hugs the base of the North Face high above Grindelwald.

For much of the hike we were enveloped by the Eiger’s infamous clouds. Sometimes it was hard even to see the trail, much less anything else. Occasionally we could hear loose rocks clattering down the face; fortunately they landed nowhere near the trail.

The only real hazard we faced was a cheesed-off-looking cow that glared at us and forced us into a wide detour.

The next day, though, we had a dizzying, up-close view of the Eiger’s North Face — from the inside.

Of all the impressive examples of Swiss engineering in the Alps — and there are many — the cogway rail line that runs uphill through a 6-mile-long tunnel inside the Eiger to a glacier-covered saddle at 11,330 feet called the Jungfraujoch takes the crown.

It’s a pricey excursion, even by Swiss standards, but if you can afford it, it’s a worthwhile, bucket-list splurge. Webcams allow you to check the weather up top before plunking down your credit card.

Halfway up, the train stops and you can peer out a window onto the frighteningly vertiginous North Face, its dark rock sheathed in ice. Krakauer wrote that the view is so acrophobia-inducing that nausea bags are made available, just in case. I didn’t see them when I was there.

At the top are all sorts of indoor diversions — an ice maze, several restaurants, an observatory, a Lindt chocolate factory — but the weather was good, so the best thing to do was go for a walk on the glacier outside.

Well-marked trails steer clear of crevasses, and the magnificent alpine scenery — we were on a high saddle between the summits of the Jungfrau and Mönch — was as close as you can get to mountaineering without roping up.

Car-free villages

The next few days were filled with idyllic day hikes with little in our packs but a chunk of Emmentaler, a hunk of crusty bread and a wedge of Toblerone.

We based ourselves in the car-free villages of Wengen and Murren, perched on opposite rims of the Yosemite-like Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Both villages offer dozens of walks, from easy, scenic strolls on the Wanderwegs to challenging hikes on the rugged Bergwanderwegs. An extensive system of gondolas, funiculars and railroads ensures you only have to walk uphill if you want to.

At the end of each day, we caught a train home and lounged on our balcony with glasses of Swiss Blauburgunder — that’s Pinot Noir to the rest of us — while the snowy Jungfrau turned pink and purple with alpenglow.

Glacier-view refuge

Our final adventure was a classic alpine experience: an overnight hike up to a traditional mountain hut.

The Swiss Alpine Club operates 152 refuges amid these peaks, perched on craggy glacial outcrops and lofty passes above the clouds. Some require mountaineering skills to reach, but many are accessible by hiking trails.

A 4½-hour walk on a path lined with wild roses passed a reservoir milky blue with glacial silt and climbed steeply up the mountainside to a tidy stone cabin called the Lauteraarhutte.

Crouched on a rocky promontory above the confluence of two glaciers at 7,850 feet, it feels like an eagle’s nest amongst the savagely sharp, ice-flecked alps.

Hut warden Katrin Müller handed us each a cold beer and explained the house rules: Dirty hiking boots are left in the foyer, exchanged for slippers. (The felt shoes of yore have given way to Crocs.)

Group sleeping quarters was upstairs and consisted of 20 mattresses laid side-by-side on the floor — a matratzenlager, in Swiss parlance. Visitors must bring their own sheet sleeping bags; the hut supplies pillows and scratchy wool blankets.

The surprisingly modern bathroom is down a long path.

Alpenglow was starting to creep down the peaks when we got some surprising visitors: a pair of chamois, a kind of alpine antelope. In nearly four decades of travel in these mountains, I’d never seen one in the wild before.

Over breakfast in the lacquered-wood dining room — coffee is still served the traditional way, in bowls — I mentioned to Scott how relieved I was that we’d been spared the bane of alpine huts: loud snoring.

He shot me a glance that would have curdled milk at 20 paces, and everyone else in the room turned and stared daggers at me.

Apparently someone had been rattling the rafters with his snoring all night.

Zurich, with frequent rail connections, is the best gateway for the Bernese Oberland.

Getting around

Most of the rail lines, gondolas, etc., in the Jungfrau region are privately owned and are not fully covered by the official Swiss Travel Pass (see below). Almost every form of transportation mentioned in this article is covered by the Jungfrau Travel Pass, which costs $42 to $60 per day, depending on how many days you buy. It also gets you half off on the Jungfraujoch train. Valid April 30 to Oct. 23. For details and purchase, go to www.jungfrau.ch. You won’t be able to see the information unless you click “Summer” at the top of the home page.

The Swiss Travel Pass, which is good on public rails throughout the country and often good for half off on private lines, can be a decent value if you’re covering a lot of ground outside the Jungfrau region. Price starts at $227 for three consecutive days of travel for adults in summer. For information and purchase, www.myswitzerland.com.

Our first night’s stay on the inn-to-inn portion of the trip was at Chalet-Hotel Schwarzwaldalp, www.schwarzwaldalp.ch. Chalet for two, $155. A three-course dinner is $31 per person. There’s nowhere else to eat in the area.

Our second night’s stay was at Berggasthaus First, www.berggasthausfirst.ch. It’s a ski resort with dormitory-style rooms. Bed and breakfast for two people, $134.

Our base in the car-free village of Wengen was the Hotel Falken, www.hotelfalken.com. Double rooms start at $165, including a four-course dinner.

Our base in the car-free village of Murren was the Hotel Jungfrau, www.hoteljungfrau.ch. Doubles start at $144 per night.

Before our hike to the mountain hut we stayed at the Grimsel Hospiz, one of the oldest and most revered hotels in Switzerland. www.grimselwelt.ch/grimselhotels/grimsel-hospiz. Doubles start at $237. It’s at the trailhead to the mountain hut. A Swiss PostBus (not covered by the Jungfrau Travel Pass) connects the hotel with Meiringen.

At the Lauteraarhutte, the mountain hut (sac-zofingen.ch/huetten/lauteraarhuette), accommodation and dinner for two people costs $157. Reservations are essential.

Good to know

Vegetarians and anyone with religious dietary restrictions: At many alpine inns your dining options are extremely limited, and in hotel dining rooms the main course is often pork. They can usually supply an alternative upon request, but it’s best to call ahead and check.